Working with Available Light

The candle I light when I meditate is in an old ball jar. When I am done meditating I put the lid on the jar and watch the flame slowly die. It takes a few seconds. The flame lives with the oxygen left in the jar and when it no longer has enough to stay lit it goes out completely.

Relationships are like candles-- they only survive with enough oxygen to stay ignited. Whether it is a family relationship, a romantic relationship, a sibling relationship, or a simple friendship, we can feel when there is light, activity, energy. And we can feel it when there's not.

In my nuclear family of three, when everyone feels good about themselves, when we are able to each be present, it feels light and full of energy. We bring together our flames and unite them. We linger at the dinner table, laugh a lot,  and have extended conversations. There is more light, more energy, and more joy. In times when we are all fully present, it feels like all of our individual flames are lit and together they burn brighter.

In my relationship with one of my sisters, I feel like there is not enough oxygen to keep my candle steadily burning when we talk. I can feel vibrant, alive and full of life before calling her and then when I get her on the phone it feels like the fire slowly dies. 

This sister is very busy, always busy. Often I'll call her and get a robotext back: "working" or "in a meeting." I know it's probably not personal but I often take it that way. I recognize that when I do finally talk to her on the phone I am bringing with me a sense of anticipatory oxygen deprivation. 

I'm so exhausted and disappointed from receiving the endless text rejections that I come into the experience of actually talking to her feeling like an asthmatic without an inhaler. My flame is barely lit, a flicker at best. We do our best to have periodic conversations, working with the available light from our flames. But it's hard. It's a struggle. It's light a candle struggling for enough oxygen to stay lit.

I imagine this sister feels the same way about me. Just as I struggle to stay lit with her, I am not the oxygen that feeds her flame. Together we are unable to create the heat and excitement that comes when I talk to a different sibling or my partner or my best friend. 

Last night my sixteen-year-old daughter Lucia FaceTimed my sister. When I went into Lucia's room I could see her laughing and animated with my sister on the screen, also laughing and animated. I felt a pang, a sadness, a loss. My sister didn't ignite this way with me. 

It made me think about my part in this snuffed candle relationship. I am not showing up with radiant energy, flame burning, lid open, welcoming a steady flow of oxygen. I am preemptively extinguished, lid sealed tight, preparing for what I think I will experience on the phone with my sister. My daughter has fresh eyes, an open mind. She does not come into her conversations with my sister saddled with fifty years of sibling dynamics, disappointments, and expectations. 

So of course my sister was lit up. Of course, Lucia was lit up. Together they were fireworks! 

I miss this sister a lot. I long to have the kind of conversations I have with my other siblings. I long to laugh with her the way she laughs with my daughter. There is a flicker of light in our relationship, if only that I want to make it stronger, brighter. I can work with that. I can work with the available light we have and build on it.  

If I want a relationship with more energy and light with my sister, I have to see her with new eyes. I have to release the oxygen-deprived expectations I put on her. I can't control what she does, but I can try to see her through a fresh lens and hope that this brings a little more oxygen to our flickering flame. 

Learning Forgiveness from A Dog

Last night at three o'clock in the morning my dog Freckles bit me. He is a small dog, about twenty-five pounds, short and very round. He had made his way up to my pillow and when I moved I accidentally rolled over him. He bit me hard on the arm and then made his way off the bed and downstairs. The bite hurt. He broke the skin a little bit and today I have a good size bruise where he got me.

After he bit me I felt bad, like I must have hurt him. I went downstairs to check on him and he seemed just fine. He was chipper and ready for a midnight snack. I went back upstairs and tried to get a little more sleep before my 6 am alarm. When I did get up and go to the living room to meditate a few hours later, Freckles joined me. He snuggled his fat back right up to my leg on the floor and sat with me for forty-five minutes.

I thought it strange that he was so comfortable cuddling up with me after inflicting a flesh wound just three hours earlier. But he was oblivious, happy to be sitting there with me, snoring away. In the moment right after Freckles bit me I was mad at him. I was coursing with adrenaline but the anger lasted just as long as it took for my heart rate to slow down. My forgiveness was immediate and complete.

If I get mad at my partner or my sister or my mother, I want them to know that I am mad. I can't let it go until I feel they've learned a lesson, that they understand the impact of their actions. I expect a little bit of remorse, maybe some penance.

I want them to be a little stand-off-ish, tentative to approach me. This will signify that they understand the errors of their ways. But with Freckles I didn't have that anger. I became almost immediately concerned about him. What had made him bite me? Was it his arthritic hips or did I bend his tail the wrong way?

And then, just hours later, Freckles approached me as if nothing had happened. He wasn't shy or unsure about smooshing up for some love this morning. He had no memory of what had happened. His memory was of the unconditionality of our relationship. The bite a few hours earlier was a vague and distant occurrence. Odds are that Freckles didn't remember it at all. He was ready to move on and get more love.

Humans make each other's lives so much harder by holding onto memories. I have a friend whose partner keeps track of times when she is hurt by her in a journal. It's like the holy grail of hurt and it's a sure way to stay mad and distant. We hold onto our memories of being hurt because we want to protect ourselves from being hurt in the future. But gripping tight to the hurt just prolongs the hurt while forgiving lets the love in.

What if we thought a little more deeply about what might have motivated a snapping voice, a thoughtless response, or an inpatient honk on the horn from our partner or parent, or sibling? What if we looked at the times when we are mad or hurt from a different angle? Like I looked at Freckles after he bit me when I thought, "What kind of pain is this sweet dog experiencing that would make him bite me?" 

What if I made space for my partner Nancy to snap at me because maybe she had a shitty day and then I just forgave her as quickly as I forgave Freckles?

And what if we weren't afraid to approach the ones we love after we've angered them? What if we invited forgiveness sooner, more immediately so that the memory of the hurt moved into the past instead of occupying real-time emotional energy? It would be so great to bound up to Nancy after hurting her feelings and giving her a great big hug, not from a place of "please forgive me" but from a place of unconditional love.

Dogs are different from humans. Their ability to conceptualize emotions and intellect is much less evolved, but they have something to teach us. The unconditional and uncomplicated love that exists between me and Freckles reminds me that this can exist with me and the other intimate relationships in my life as well. I have to be willing to forgive when I am hurt and to lean in to love when I've been unkind. 

It only seems hard to do this because I've become habituated to driving such a complex superhighway of emotions with the ones I love. It sounds nice though, to simplify things. People I love get mad, they get hurt, they bite. But they still love me. What a wonderful world it would be if, instead of lingering, evolving into a different more complicated story, forgiveness came right after the bite. What if I cut out all the drama in between the hurt and the endpoint of forgiveness?

I imagine how much lighter I would feel if I could operate from a place of trusting that even when I act out, piss off people I love, misbehave, or show my worst self, I am still loved. Freckles is that way. He bit me but that didn't change his love for me or his expectation that I would still love him. And I forgave Freckles within just a few minutes. The end result was that we were both free to settle back into the pure experience of unconditional love. If only humans could do that with each other. 

It's About Time We Had A Middle-Aged Superhero

This morning I heard an interview with Salma Hayek. Hayek was recently cast in the Marvel film, Eternals. The film is about a group of beings who have hidden themselves from humanity for thousands of years. Hayek plays Ajak, the leader of the superpowered species. Hayek said that when she put on her superhero suit for the first time, she "felt moved."

Hayak is 54-years-old. The fact that she was put into the role of the leader of a superhuman group of beings is totally right. Women in mid-life are the power source of humanity. They are wise, resilient, multi-dimensional creatures of will and endurance.

Yesterday the New York Times published a series called Mothers on the Brink. The piece follows three working mothers as they navigate the pandemic. Mothers are doing it all, holding this shit show together. To read the tasks that these working mothers accomplish is to read the stories of unsung superheroes. These women are in training for the next phase when their time and energy is freed up from caretaking the kids.  In middle age, when the kids are mostly independent, women walk away with a skill set so powerful, that when harnessed, is fierce enough to rule the world.

What women learn to manage and navigate as working mothers, especially in a pandemic, is beyond what any man could even contemplate, regardless of his job and responsibilities in that position. To have to care for other little humans while also working in the adult realm requires shape-shifting ability, mind-morphing flexibility, and marathon-running stamina.

No wonder Salma Hayek felt moved when she slipped on the superhero suit. She was coming home, being recognized for the superhuman that she is, that all of us are when we reach midlife. Our society tells us otherwise. Look at Hillary Clinton. Look at Elizabeth Warren. These two amazing superheroes were shut down and vilified because their powers were too great, too threatening to the status quo. 

Maybe we're slowly coming out of this archaic mentality that middle-aged women can't be superheroes.  We've got Kamala Harris leading the way. She's penetrated the paternal force field, hopefully blazing a trail for other superheroes to get through, stand by her side and save the world. And now we've got Salma Hayek as Ajak.

It's time. It's been time for a fifty-four-year-old woman to be a superhero. All fifty-four-year-old women are superheroes. And part of their heroism is their stoic persistence to keep on fighting, caring, showing up, even when they are invisible, unappreciated, and unrewarded for their strength and wisdom.

But now Salma Hayek is putting on a superhero costume. She's donning the appropriate apparel to represent women like her.  Hayek is starring in a movie where she is the strongest of the strong of a superpowered race. I can't wait to see the movie. I can't wait to dress up like Ajak next Halloween. Maybe the world as we know it is changing. I hope so. It's about time.
 

Nothing to Report: Boredom as a Balm

I talk to my mom five or six days a week. My mom has always been a very active person. She has always had a job and lots of friends, hobbies, and activist causes she works on. Her life has been rich and full of things to report when we talk.

My mom is retired now and, like the rest of us, isolated from most of the activities that used to fill her days. When we talk Mom starts the conversation, “Hi Laura, how are you?” At some point in the conversation, Mom will say, “Well, tell me something. I have nothing to report.”

I don’t really have anything to report either but I do have a lot to talk about. This past year has been a year filled with time. I have so much more time at home. Every day is the same. Minus a chunk of hours carved out in the middle of the day for work, the free time of the day is void of the things I used to do — coffee with friends, going to a movie, out to dinner, sitting in the stands of my daughter’s soccer game, going shopping for the boots I’ve been coveting. But now none of that exists. Daily life is boring.

And this boredom is good. This boredom is a balm that I needed to deepen my connection with myself and my partner. We are both bored. And in this boredom, this life devoid of social distractions and obligations our relationship has deepened — with ourselves and with each other.

This boredom has been an invitation into our individual interiorities. Ten months ago the beach we walked was filled with shells and driftwood, seabirds, and other people. But the shoreline has been receding, taking with it everything on the beach. Now the beach we walk is wider, with more sand, no shells, driftwood, birds, or people. It is just us, walking the beach. The ocean is there, vast and beautiful, a constant reminder of the inherent peace that exists when all of the detritus is washed away.

We walk on the smooth sand staring out onto the ocean or looking down and the sand, being with ourselves, quiet enough to hear our thoughts. And every once in a while we come together. We share a conversation about what is going on in each of our interiorities. And it’s interesting. It’s fascinating, this new access to the inner workings of the one I love.

My mentor once taught me the concept, “It’s not the what, it’s the who.” In the context of that lesson, I was trying to come to terms with firing an employee who I felt lacked integrity. My mentor explained, “she may be great at what she does, but it’s the who that matters.”

When I talk to my mom, it’s enough to just hear her voice, to listen to what going on in her head and heart. I don’t need to hear any news. But I get it. This “what” is how we were socialized. What is your job? What is your income? What are your hobbies? What have you done today? The whats are the details that we’ve been trained to give focus and attention to for most of our lives. But now most of the whats are gone and we have this unique invitation to spend more time with the who.

The “who” is the essence, this interiority that often stays hidden. This time of boredom, of nothing to report, has offered an opening to my essence, to my partner’s essence. We don’t have the constant negotiation that we used to have. We don’t have to agree on where to go to dinner or if we want to have so and so to a dinner party. We don’t have to come to an agreement on where we want to travel for the next family vacation or who will stay at home and wait for the plumber. There is nothing to report. There is space, and quiet. We are co-existing in an openness that we’ve never experienced before.

I am worried about going back to the way things were. This new shoreline, this beautiful quietude of our little world, has been a balm and an opening to something richer and more connecting. We talk about it, this new way of being with ourselves and each other. We both feel it and appreciate it. I hope when the beach is full of activity again, when the distractions of life as we knew it return, we can still feel this feeling, that it will always be a part of who we are.

Harry and the Contact Tracer

The first person I spoke to this morning was Harry. Harry is 99. He lives in an independent living facility and had COVID about a month ago. I work as a contact tracer and we try to contact people within twenty-four hours of their COVID diagnosis. With older folks, it often takes a while to track them down because they are in and out of the hospital or rehabilitation centers recovering.

When I spoke to Harry this morning he was well over his COVID illness except for a persistent cough and moderately low oxygen. I asked him the requisite questions about his symptoms, the onset date, and his health history and then we just chatted. I told him what an honor it was to talk to a ninety-nine-year-old and what a treat it was to start my day with a call to him.

I don’t know where Harry was from. He had an eastern European accent. He told me that he walks every day and since having COVID, has found that he needs to take more rests. He told me that he goes to the podiatrist to get his nails cut because he can no longer reach them to do it himself. He told me he’s getting his first vaccine shot on February 12th; it was delayed because he got sick.

I told Harry that my stepfather Al is ninety-three but that I haven’t seen him in a year because he’s in Chicago. Al will hopefully get his COVID vaccine on Sunday. My mom and my sister will help him navigate the subzero Chicago weather to get to the hospital for his magic shot. I told Harry that I missed Al and that talking to him was almost as good.

A few days ago I had a call with a ninety-five-year-old woman named Pam. Pam, like Harry, was energized and happy. Unlike many elderly people, Pam had no symptoms with her positive COVID diagnosis. Pam told me that she believes she is so healthy because, like Harry, she goes for lots of walks. Also, she added, she is a watercolor artist and has always painted standing up. Last month I switched to a standing desk and hearing Pam’s analysis of her own good health affirmed my decision to spend my days standing instead of sitting.

I love talking to elderly people. Compared to other people I talk to in my job as a contact tracer, they are comparatively wise, calm, and present. Yesterday I helped staff the health district’s call center because it was so inundated with people calling about the vaccine. In my state, there are over a million seniors trying to get vaccinated and there simply are not enough vaccines.

For two hours yesterday, I answered phone calls from people in their 70s and 80s trying to figure out how to make an appointment for a vaccine. I had to tell them that we are out of vaccines, that there are none to be had through the health district in the near future. Their only option, I reluctantly told them, was to go to the website and click and refresh and repeat until they got an appointment.

Some people told me that they’d been clicking, refreshing, and repeating for three weeks. One eighty-two-year-old man with a landline told me that he didn’t own a computer. I repeated the same disappointing news to every caller and then we chatted. They thanked me for answering. It was so great they said, to hear a real voice, to have someone actually pick up the phone.

Sometimes we laughed at the absurdity of the situation, that, like the mismanagement at the beginning of COVID, our great country is once again bumbling through this important vaccine rollout. Many people vented. They told me about their COPD or recent cancer diagnosis. They told me that they were a veteran or retired nurse.

Every call I answered I knew I would be disappointing the caller, replying that I had no good news. And at the end of every call, there was a moment of acceptance by the caller. Okay, they said, they’d try what I had suggested. I’m sorry, I always told them, I wish I could have helped you more. And every single person told me, in their own way, that they were just grateful that I answered, that someone had picked up the call and listened to them.

Those people dialing the call center just needed someone to listen to them. They needed a real person on the line, even if that real person was giving them bad news. The job of a contact tracer can be rote and a grind, but the moments of talking to these wise elders is a gift. It happens every few days that I have a rich conversation with an elder, more seldom do I get to chat with someone as old as Harry.

The lesson from Harry and all of these elders is that connecting is important. We all need it. It doesn’t take much to connect, to feel seen and heard. A short phone call, a listening ear. When I called Harry and Pam I felt a sense of connection to them — to their presence and wisdom. They shared something only they can know in their ripe old age. They offered me that connection. And yesterday when I sat and listened to all of those people trying to get a vaccine I was simply offering that to them — a chance to connect to a real person, to share their frustration, fears, and fatigue.

I started this job as a contact tracer eight months ago. It’s a new experience for me. A few months before the pandemic hit I sold my yoga studio, a business I had owned and operated for almost twenty years. I’ve found great joy in having a job with a supervisor and a team. I’m simply working. I don’t have to create new projects, manage employees, satisfy customers. I just get to do the tasks assigned to me in my job.

While it is sometimes understimulating, the satisfaction I get from just being a worker bee overrides the feelings of boredom time and time again. And there are wonderful moments too like with Harry and Pam.

Today will be another day of calling and asking questions, of staffing the call center and listening to the woes of sweet old people who just want a vaccine. But I’m glad to be doing this work. In this big, scary, confusing world, it’s giving me lots of little opportunities to simply listen and connect.

To Drink or Not to Drink: Have You Ever Asked Yourself the Question?

I come from a long line of drinkers. I remember my maternal grandmother used to make my grandfather drink fake beer. It came in a cornflower blue can and I think it was called Select. His family had a lot of drunks and she was on constant watch that he not succumb to that fate. Drinking too much and becoming an alcoholic was always something I worried about. As a reaction, I’ve planted myself firmly in the land of hyper-vigilance — always watching myself, afraid, armed with the fear that someday I too will cross over the line and drink too much. 

Both of my sisters don’t drink. One because she realized ten years ago that she is an alcoholic. She has found great solace and strength in AA. My other sister doesn’t drink either. Twenty years ago she just decided it was more trouble to drink than to not drink so she just cut it out of her life.

My dad drank. He was a sad, sloppy drunk, never mean or angry. I’ll never forget when he stopped drinking. I was about twelve. He called my sisters and me into the living room and sat us down. He was usually more playful than serious, so when he formally invited us in and sat across from us ready to lecture, we knew something was up. “I’m not drinking anymore,” he said. He talked a bit about how he drank too much and he was making a commitment to us and to himself to stop.

It was funny because we never talked about the fact that he did drink. It just was part of life. I didn’t feel traumatized or burdened by Dad’s drinking. I just knew he did it. Sometimes I felt sad for him when he was sad-drunk, but I never felt scared or unsafe. When my dad made his declaration that he was quitting drinking, he seemed happy, proud to be telling us about this big life change. Dad died about fifteen years later and he never did drink again after that day.

Drinking is part of my family culture, part of American culture. Watch any show on television and there’s an enticing glass of wine or the perfect finger of bourbon at the ready for that hard conversation. In my house growing up, there was always wine for every special occasion and usually at every evening dinner. My paternal grandfather talked about bourbon all the time and he and my grandmother had wonderful alcohol soaked cocktail parties on the regular. In high school, my sisters and I would steal bottles of wine to share with our friends from the cases my mom kept in the basement.

We learn early in our lives that relaxing, having fun, and socializing all involve drinking. What that message subtly teaches us is that we won’t be able to relax, have fun or socialize without drinking. Eventually, we become unconsciously dependent on the presence of alcohol. We’re taught that not drinking is a burden, a hindrance that will curb our ability to relax or enjoy our lives. But in reality, at least for me, the very act of drinking creates more stress and anxiety than less.

Because of my family history, I’ve always been a hyper-controlled drinker. On principle, I reject offers of drinks when I’m with family (so I’m clear I’m not in that camp), and I have always monitored my intake with precision at social events. Because drinking is so scary for me, it’s not really that fun. During the pandemic, my partner Nancy and I have watched our drinking — at the beginning, we drank a glass of wine with dinner three or four nights a week, sometimes five or six. We felt the indulgence deserved because we were living in such stressful times. Then we’d talk about it, realize that we were just becoming habituated to the act, but not really enjoying it that much so we’d stop having wine with dinner for the whole next month. We’ve gone back and forth several times over the last year.

At the end of December, my friend Kate who, like me, worries about the physical and mental health impacts of alcohol on her life, said to me, “I’m not going to drink for 2021,” and I immediately said, “Me neither.” She didn’t ask me to do it with her. She didn’t want or need a buddy. But as soon as I heard it I felt like this was the invitation I’d been waiting for my whole life. 

And what I’ve felt is utter relief. I don’t have to drink. I don’t have to drink to socialize or to fit in. I don’t have to worry that I’ll become an out of control drinker anymore. I don’t have to waste precious energy monitoring myself (and others) every time I go to a party. Like an unsightly wart, I just cut drinking out. 

I am aware that many people truly have addictions, that they try to quit drinking or drugs or sugar or coffee, and they struggle. I don’t want to minimize that hard work or that effort. But I do want to share with all of those people who are more like me, simply burdened by drinking, how liberating this feels. 

It’s not “I don’t get to drink,” it’s “I don’t have to drink.” When I watch Netflix, whether it is a detective show or a romance, drinking is always there. It’s the sidekick to all fun things or hard things or exciting things. And, more people die of alcoholism any other addiction. It’s true, drinking in moderation can be fun, but not drinking at all is pretty great too. 

Force Napping

Last night my daughter Lucia told me that she was scarred by that horrible parenting move I performed on her regularly until she was about twelve-years-old. She described it as “force napping.” According to Lucia, now sixteen-years-old, she remembers that every time we went on an airplane or a road trip somewhere when we arrived, I would force her to nap. I’d do a guided meditation and gently brush my palm over her eyelids to close them, trying to get her to fall asleep for an hour or twenty minutes or ten or whatever I could “force” her to do.

“Sometimes,” she recalled, “you’d turn on white noise and leave me in a room in some strange house or hotel so I’d ‘nap.’” 

She’s not imagining this forced nap history. I did it. I remember it well. I was convinced that I could keep her calm and collected as long as she had enough sleep. On those early morning flights when Lucia didn’t get enough sleep, I was possessed to get her to nap, especially if she didn’t sleep on the plane. I was sure that kids misbehaved because they were sleep-deprived.

Lucia was an easy child. She was naturally compliant and cooperative and calm, but I convinced myself that if she didn’t get enough sleep, she’d turn into a demon child and I wouldn’t be able to handle her. Maybe I was worried about what other people would think. Or maybe I thought that if I let her get into a bad, sleep-deprived pattern she’d never be that “easy” child again.

At sixteen Lucia has the same disposition as that of her younger days. For a teenager, she’s easy. My friends and family say, “You have a good kid” (whatever that means). I’m biased, but I actually think she’s amazing. She has a great sense of humor. She’s smart and mouthy and appropriately dismissive of pretty much every aspect of my being. But she is a teenager which is simply not easy as a parent. 

I don’t get to control Lucia’s sleep anymore. I don’t have control over much anymore. At the beginning of the pandemic, she moved down to our basement to get some space and I don’t really know what’s going on with her during the day or the night. The other morning she came upstairs with two new holes in her ears.

I ask Lucia every morning how she slept, sometimes inquiring about what time she went to bed, but she never tells me. It’s her time now and I have to trust that she’ll sleep when she wants or needs to. When Lucia told me about how much she hated force napping it made me think about what other parenting decisions I might have made based on my own self-preservation. In addition to force napping, I made Lucia clear and set the table, practice piano, brush her teeth, and say please and thank you religiously. 

I imposed those rules so that my life would be easier. If I could train my child to listen to me and do what I said, I’d be okay. We’d be okay.

Is that what parenting is? Keeping our children contained and controlled enough so that we retain our sanity? We say the rules we make when our kids are young are for them, but I think they’re more for us, at least they were for me. I can see now that not having the ability to impose order and control over my teenager, how much I relied on those rules to make me feel like I was a good parent.

It happens that all those rules I had for Lucia have worked out. Lucia is a good person, a responsible human and she doesn’t get tons of expensive cavities. But adolescence is the time to blow shit up — to challenge the rules that we made for our kids. It’s time for the kid to teach the parents some stuff. Teenagers are figuring who they are and what feels good to them. They can’t do this by following the rules that we made up to make us, their parents, feel in control when they were kids.

So now it’s time for me to be out of control, to be a victim of Lucia’s non-sensical rules for life. Lucia’s room is a disaster. It looks like a frat house. Her drawers are overflowing and obscenely disorganized. Her bathroom has used contacts, makeup wipes, and dirty towels along with empty toilet paper rolls littering the floor. I know I taught Lucia to keep her room clean, but the rules have changed.

Lucia articulating to me how much she hated the force napping was funny. We laughed and laughed at how ridiculous and controlling that was of me. But it was also clarifying. Lucia was articulating that she is past all that. Those rules, that control, that micro-managing is all in the past. 

It’s a relief really, to acknowledge that I don’t have the control over Lucia that I used to. As parents, at some point, we have to trust that our kids will be okay. Lucia may not sleep enough. She may live in a clothes tornado, but at the end of every day, I say goodnight to a good person, someone I’d like to talk to and get to know. She’s just beginning this new journey of creating her own rules, her own path in the world. It’s hers now. I get to sit back and watch it all unfold.